It’s no coincidence you hear so little about Alex Rodriguez these days, since the Yankees are adhering to an organization-wide blackout and the slugger has, for the most part, kept his mouth shut. It’s the smartest tactic A-Rod has adopted in years.

Still, it’s anyone’s guess how long the silence lasts. What’s the over-under on A-Rod allowing himself to be photographed working out or to be quoted in a friendly news outlet proclaiming to be in the best shape of his life? Make no mistake, after serving his one-year suspension, Rodriguez has every intention of playing for the Yankees in 2015, no matter what the public or front office think of him.

Given his need for attention and the narrative friends say he’s already scripted – disgraced PED-user rises from the ashes to win over the fans – news of A-Rod’s homecoming isn’t entirely unexpected. What’s more surprising, though, is ownership’s willingness to let Rodriguez walk through the open door.

The whole notion of buying out the remainder of A-Rod’s contract seems dead for now. One major league official familiar with the Yankees’ thinking said, “Unless [the Steinbrenner family] offers A-Rod 100 cents on the dollar, why would he walk away?”

Indeed, no one has convinced Hal Steinbrenner to take even the slightest loss on the $60-plus million Rodriguez is still owed through 2017. The family has decided A-Rod will have to earn his every last dollar, even if it’ll mean being subjected to public ridicule.

That, apparently, doesn’t matter to Rodriguez. A friend who speaks to the slugger on a regular basis said he can’t be swayed into thinking the landscape will be too toxic. “If [Ryan] Braun could handle [negative public opinion], Alex thinks he can, too.”

In other words, the humiliation of the Biogenesis scandal will not factor in A-Rod’s preparation for next season. He’s processed it, rationalized it and moved on. Forget that he accepted the longest and most severe PED-related punishment in baseball history, and that he was caught lying about his association with Anthony Bosch. And it hasn’t dented Rodriguez’s determination, either, that his chances for the Hall of Fame have been crushed into fine powder.

Rodriguez has instead found a way to co-exist with his darker angels, not to mention the stain on his legacy. But here’s the question talent evaluators have been asking since last summer – one that directly impacts the Yankees’ financial liability.

Just how healthy will Rodriguez be when he actually steps foot on the field? There are two possible scenarios here: the first says that, given a full year to rest and rehabilitate – and, who knows, ply himself with cutting edge drugs that exceed what Bosch was selling – A-Rod might just turn himself into a laboratory monster.

Perhaps he’ll find a way, legally or otherwise, to re-ignite his fast-twitch muscles and regain the bat speed that abandoned him after 2012. Rodriguez has kept his strength, no one refutes that. But his ability to catch up to elite fastballs will be the most accurate measure of his career arc.

Going into his age-39 season, Rodriguez could simply be done, performance-enhancing drugs or not, either too slow, or too slow-reacting or simply too brittle to be an asset to any team. The face-saving way for both the slugger and his employers is a series of injuries – hip, knee, lower back – that results in a disability claim followed by retirement.

But the Yankees realized last summer that A-Rod wasn’t as broken-down as they thought and the belief that he would languish on the disabled list and finally call it quits never materialized.

That’s why team elders are preparing to see Rodriguez in spring training, re-calibrating their thinking from total war to a more realistic assessment of whether Rodriguez can actually help.

Let’s face it, the 2014 Bombers aren’t reminding anyone of the ’98 or even the 2009 edition. Except for Masahiro Tanaka’s debut, it’s been a mostly mediocre two months, as the hitters and pitchers both rank in the middle of the pack in every significant category in the American League. So you can make the argument that Rodriguez can’t really hurt, not unless you believe Yangervis Solarte is the third baseman of the future (which he is not).

What is true, however, is that A-Rod’s return would create a level of drama, if not friction, which is conspicuously absent this year. The clubhouse is devoid of subplots; Joe Girardi has fewer crises to manage. The entire organization has a cleaner, less troubled feel to it.
Then again, how much is an antiseptic summer worth if it only yields 85 wins? That’s what A-Rod has to be asking as he awaits a comeback that, for now, seems inevitable.

NEWS ITEM: Mets name a new communications director.
Another executive, presumably another strategy, this time from Harold Kaufman who comes to the Mets from The Ehrhardt Group in New Orleans. This hiring may or may not represent the fallout from the absurd gimmick launched two weeks ago – the fan-loyalty pledge – or the front office’s decision to limit the Mets’ off-field activities around town. Apparently, ownership thinks that’s why the team is under .500 at home and can’t score runs at Citi Field.

The shuffling doesn’t address the real problem in Flushing: the Wilpons’ financial distress, which keeps them from properly funding a big-market franchise. That’s why the Mets don’t hit. That’s why they keep losing. They don’t need new PR guys. They need a bigger payroll. They need better players.